No load shedding outside South Africa? We made up the term? Not so.

You may have heard that South Africa coined the term "Load Shedding" and the real term is "Rolling Blackouts". Not true at all. They are different things, and both terms are valid. "Load Shedding" is what the electricity supplier does to reduce load, and one way they can do it is "Rolling Blackouts". And, yes, this "Load Shedding" is also used in the USA by electrical engineers who manage electricity supplies of all sorts. Here is a photo from an American TV show dated 2014, where the American Engineer clearly introduces Stage 1 Load Shedding. In this case, they are not doing Rolling Blackouts, but redirecting power to only critical areas of the ship.

Load shedding has been experienced in many countries, however, not all countries use the technical term for it in the news. Of course, South Africa's load shedding has been particularly problematic because of reasons we won't cover in this blog. 😀